Epic of Gilgamesh Compared to Noah's Ark

The Past Disproving the PresentIn today’s primarily Judeo-Christian society nearly every person has knowledge of Noah’s Ark and the associated flood story but, only a handful of those people have been exposed to the flood story in The Epic of Gilgamesh. By observing the similarities in both stories one should come to realize that one of these stories must have been written before the other. According to Britannica, the clay tablets which the Epic of Gilgamesh was imprinted on predate any recordings of the flood story from the Bible. Since the Epic of Gilgamesh is known to be nothing but a gripping story, much like Greek epics, containing glorious adventures with recurring mention of polytheistic beliefs from the time, this should spark some curiosity as to how true a literal interpretation of the Bible is. The Bible makes the gigantic claim of being the absolute truth which every person seeks but, after establishing that the story of Noah is nothing more than a folk tale, the Bible falls short of its claims. In order to be certain the Epic of Gilgamesh will falsify an absolute truth, close analysis of both pieces is required. A basic outline of both stories with the similarities being emphasized will provide sufficient results for analysis. Both flood stories contain a hero who is forced into enduring the flood because of the disgust humans have caused the supernatural beings. The God or gods decide to exterminate humanity because of the actions of humans. Both stories continue into the selection of a hero by the divine powers giving specific instructions on what needs to be done for survival from what will be the extinction of humanity. The higher beings have chosen their heroes to save humanity. The reason that element of mercy exists in these stories is because the authors wanted to give their listeners something to have faith in. Modern religions exist for that sole purpose. The...

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

...The GilgameshEpic is an ancient Mesopotamian story about life and the suffering one must endure while alive. Included in the story, is a tale of a great flood that covered the earth, killing all but a select few of it's inhabitants. This story of a great flood is common to most people, and has effected history in several ways. It's presence in the GilgameshEpic has caused many people to search for evidence that a great flood actually happened. It has also caused several other religions and cultures to take the same basic story, claiming it for their own.
Whether in Christianity in the form of Noah'sArk, or through Mesopotamian history in the form of an immortal, the idea of a great flood has proven to be a common story throughout the world. Though Noah'sArk may be the most popular form of the story, it is not the oldest. Many people believe Noah'sArk was based on Utnapishnem's flood story. The two stories are obviously based on the same thing, but one must wonder which one is true or which came first.
The story of Utnapishnem in the GilgameshEpic starts with a dream that warns Utnapishnem of the coming flood. The gods are angry and want to rid the world of mankind. Utnapishnem built a boat large enough to carry his family, personal belongings, and "the seed of all other living creatures." After...

...
Epic of Gilgamesh vs. Noah’sArk
The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Flood and Genesis 6:9, Noah’sArk, are two well-known flood stories. Both stories are very similar to each other, but with important differences. There is a controversy between the two stories, that it is the same story but told differently. Some similarities between the two are that they both include a boat, a righteous hero and passengers. The differences are the cause of the flood, the duration and the means of announcement.
The obvious similarity is that both of the characters were warned to build a boat to escape a flood. Secondly, families of both Noah and Utnapishtim were saved along with the sampling of animals they were instructed to gather. Third, both floods are believed to have occurred on or in the Mesopotamian plain. Then, during the flood, both men sent out a dove and a raven to determine the conditions of the flood. At the end, both boats came to rest on a mountain. Lastly, at the end both men sacrificed an offering.
All though the similarities, there are many differences that set the stories apart. The foremost difference is the duration of the flood. In the Epic of Gilgamesh the flood lasted only 6 days and 7 nights, while Noah’s Flood lasted 40 days. Next, the cause of the Gilgamesh flood was because of man’s wickedness...

...story of Noah and his Ark are recorded in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. It says that as God looked upon the earth, He saw only wickedness and corruption. Unhappy with the way mankind had turned out, He decided to destroy the earth. He went to a righteous man named Noah and ordered him to build an ark, "the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits."
(A cubit has generally been described as the distance between the point of a man's elbow and the tip of his middle finger, which seems to have been standardized at 17.72 inches, although another common linear unit was the royal cubit at 20.72 inches.)
Noah was to populate the Ark with two of each animal on earth. It then rained forty days and forty nights, but the waters remained on the earth for more than a year. When the Great Flood finally receded, the Ark came to rest on the mountains of Uratu, today known at Ararat---and historians have been searching ever since for the Great Boat.
Contrary to popular belief, the Bible was not the originator of the story of Noah and the Great Flood. In ancient Babylonia---and even more ancient Sumeria---the same story was recorded thousands of years before the Bible was written. The Babylonian poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, has Utnapishtim acting on the instructions of his god, Ea, and building an...

...In Judeo-Christian mythology, one of the best recognized stories from the Old Testament is the story of Noah and the Ark, and how they survived God's great flood. This story is a common one throughout many mid-east cultures, both past and present. The most notable of these is in the ancient Mesopotamian mythology, with the story of Utnapishtim and his story of survival of the gods wrath. Though both are telling what is assumed to be a tale of the same event, there are many similarities as well as differences in certain details of the story. Although some of these differing aspects are for the most part, fairly trivial, some of them are quite drastic from one version to the other. <br><br>The source of the myth in the two cultures is quite different, as well as the way the story narrated. In the case of the ancient Mesopotamian version of the myth, it is found in The Epic of Gilgamesh. It is told to Gilgamesh by Utnapishtim when Gilgamesh encounters him while on his quest for the plant of everlasting life. Here we have a first hand account of the flood, by one of the sole survivors of the flood, the tale itself is found in an epic of a great king, which wasn't exactly revered as a sacred book in the Mesopotamian culture, but was still treated with a great deal of respect. <br><br>This is quite from the ancient Hebrew account of the flood. In the Old Testament, it is presumably Moses who is...

...The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Genesis are two different texts from different time periods. The stories that are going to be discussed are the Genesis and Gilgamesh flood stories. They have few similarities but their stories continue along the same line, although they are different in regard to detail. This essay will examine the reasons of the flood, the role of the two main characters, the religious characters and other noticeable difference of these texts.
The reason of the flood of the in The Epic of Gilgamesh is that the gods are extremely angry because they could not sleep. "The uproar of mankind is intolerable and sleep is no longer possible by reasons of the babel" (35). The god’s vindication of destroying mankind seems highly unreasonable. The Gods plan to terminate humanity because they are making too much noise. It seems that the gods did not think about their decision intelligently. These gods have the ability connect to people in dreams and make a flood to exterminate mankind, but they can not do anything about the noise. It’s clearly obvious that these gods do not use their powers for a meaningful purpose.
In Genesis there is a much more acceptable explanation for the flood in the Genesis. God wants to destroy humans because humans are so wicked and evil that "It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and t grieved him at his heart" (60). God says: "I will destroy man whom I...

...Utnapishtim teaches Gilgamesh a very important lesson on immortality. It is very interesting that even back in ancient times, the people and gods understood the definition of immortality and its characteristics. While there are many differences of opinion on the meaning behind the Epic of Gilgamesh, I find that it highly resembles the beliefs of Christianity. There are key events during this epic that teach Gilgamesh, as well as anyone else who will listen and read, that tell of the true journey of finding immortality. Gilgamesh learns the inevitability of death, and has a hard time coping with it.
The search for immortality seems to be an obsession for many men and women all throughout history. In the Epic of Gilgamesh a man investigates the possibility of immortality following the saddening death of his friend, his brother Enkidu. That man, Gilgamesh, feeling the fear of the possibility of his own mortality which was before unrealized before the death of Enkidu, searches for a way to preserve himself.
Is it truly that Gilgamesh searches for a physical immortality or more of a spiritual immortality? Gilgamesh wishes to give the flower of immortality to the elders of the city to rejuvenate them and return the youth to the kingdom of Uruk. This show of selflessness and concern for his people is a sight that might...

...Aylin Sipahi
CMLT C110
Final Essay for Epic of Gilgamesh
February 19, 2013
The Epic of Gilgamesh serves as a great looking glass into a long lost culture in which most artifacts are lost. The story centers on Gilgamesh, a ruthless king who is two thirds god and one third man. As king, he does not meet his potentials of leadership as he is often self-centered and sometimes depicted as inhumane. When his dear friend Enkidu dies, he sets off to find immortality. He eventually fails, but during his journey, he came to terms with his mortality and became a more compassionate person. Even though the main characters are men, the women play small but vital roles along his journey. The women in this epic reveal that they are solely responsible for the civilization of Gilgamesh and Enkidu by means of dream interpretation, sex, and motherly instincts, because the men of this epic do not have the ability to do them on their own.
As king, Gilgamesh does things of his own accord and with his own judgment. He terrifies his city with his ruthless behavior, and even upsets the gods. He takes away sons from families, and has his way with newly wedded brides on their honeymoon before the grooms. As Gilgamesh sees women as merely sex objects, it’s difficult to imagine that when he needs direction he goes to his mother, Ninsun “who is well-beloved...

...The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the greatest pieces of literature from the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia known to modern scholars. It was found among ruins in Ninevah in the form of twelve large tablets, dating from 2,000 B. C. This heroic poem is named for its hero, Gilgamesh, a tyrannical Babylonian king who ruled the city of Uruk. According to the myth, the gods responded to prayers and sent a wild brutish man, Enkidu, to challenge Gilgamesh to a wrestling match. When the contest ends, neither is victorious and the two become friends. They journey together and share many adventures. On an expedition to the west, they confront an evil monster, Humbaba. Enkidu slays Humbaba and in return the gods take Enkidu's life. Gilgamesh the mighty hero is then transformed into Gilgamesh the broken mortal. The pursuit of immortality leads Gilgamesh into further adventures. The most famous is his encounter with Utnapishtim, and ancient hero who had survived a tragic flood. His tale, recounted in the epic, bears many resemblances to the biblical story of the flood. Gilgamesh, following Utnapishim's advice, finds a plant capable of rendering him immortal, only to have it stolen by a snake while he sleeps, exhausted from his quest. On this note, the epic ends. Gilgamesh's search for immortality ends in vain, however his accounts were written...